Posts tagged “ketchup”

There are some dishes which I cook over and over again for my daily meals. Some of these are purely out of simplicity, allowing the laziness in me to take over, so that I don’t have to think to much or fuss over what to have for a weekday lunch. But some of these dishes are revisited over and over again because of the memories they carry. Many of these are comfort foods, dishes which I’d been eating all these years since young when my mother was still around. And now that she is gone, these dishes invoke a profound sense of nostalgia，reminiscent of the times we’d spent together cooking, the sights and sounds, not forgetting smells from our small kitchen. Thankfully over the years of cooking together, I’d learnt from her and consolidated a small but decent repertoire of dishes which we’d prepared together and enjoyed tremendously, dishes which I cook over and over again, archiving the flavours and fueling memories…(more…)

海南炸猪排 Hainanese Deep Fried Pork Chops is another dish that sends me right back to my childhood. My mum prepared a version of this fairly frequently when I was young, because my sister and I, as children loved fried food! I remember vividly how I used to help my mother tumbuk i.e. pound cream crackers using our old mortar and pestle on the floor laid with a layer of old newspapers beside the kitchen sink as my mother washed and chopped ingredients for other dishes. The sweet and tangy flavours from this dish are most remarkable, and all the more memorable. Well, we are not of Hainanese descent, so truth be told, I’m not sure where and from whom my mother learnt this dish from. Was it from one of the zup chai png stalls in Chinatown? Or was it from the famous Hainanese curry rice stall that opened only during the wee hours of the morning near Kovan? Being the clever woman she was, this was definitely well within her means to have reverse-engineered it. But one thing remained certain till this very day, my mother’s Hainanese Deep Fried Pork Chops were simply delish!!!